Firstly, "paid" is a loose term. A blog may pay a few cents a month or a hundred dollars. Some pay more, but the people behind them really know what they're doing, and are willing to put in effort over time to build an income.

Here's what I've learned over the years...

1. Get a blog service you're happy with.

I've tested over ten different blog service and would recommend the following two as the best.

I recommend Google's blogger - it's free, easy to use, attractive, and has adsense ads built in

or squarespace - you can see mine here for an example: www.ananga.squarespace.com

It's a premium service - mine costs around $7 a month but it's very flexible, has excellent support, and you can do way more than blog with it. It's a bit of a learning curve. But you can get a free month's trial to play around and see if it's for you before you commit.

2. Be specific.

You’re far more likely to succeed with a narrow niche packed with specific info, than a broad based blog with loads of subjects on it.

It’s OK to write different subjects around your target, but you have to be target focused. Otherwise you’re just another “catâ&# 8364; blog.

What’s a cat blog? It’s an online diary of the minutia of peoples lives that doesn’t earn money. Walked the dog, fed the cat, called my friend. Some of them are hilarious, inspiring and very well written but... They tend not to be the blogs brining in the income.

So back to specifics then...

Pick your target. What do you know? What advice/info/insights can you share that are centered around ONE SPECIFIC AREA?

Then pick your title, register your blog and get writing. Adsense will pick up automatically on your niche, Google will crawl your site because it will be packed with targeted relevant content. People will eventually start calling in... They will click your ads because they are relevant to what’s on your blog page and the cents will start to trickle your way.

Good luck :-)

Learn more about this author, Ananga Sivyer.
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